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Kickin’ It Back to the Old School

[Editors’ note: What follows is DJ Incredible Zulk, aka Claire Zulkey‘s, blog post for WBEZ. Thanks for letting us reprint it, Claire, for putting together such an excellent mix and for repping us on such a sophisticated platform!]

This whole mix began with me playing “The Humpty Dance” and remembering what a fun song it is. I went into a ’90s happy rap/R&B wormhole, going back to some of my favorite songs from late middle school and early high school. Ironically, “Humpty Dance” didn’t make the cut because it’s six and a half minutes long, which is too long for a DDPP mix (in my opinion.) The last minute especially of the song feels unnecessary.

This is from one of the first tapes I ever bought. En Vogue was just the coolest, you know? So gorgeous and empowered and talented. You know how one of Beyonce’s latest songs tell people to bow down? Well she needs to bow down, repeatedly, to En Vogue.

My friend Maureen requested some Michael Jackson, so she got some.

Dance songs about choo choo trains never fail.

[Another Editor’s note: THIS VIDEO IS SO DISTURBING. I can never dance to this song at DDPP without partway through pretending to roller skate around the room and/or rip muscles off my body and throw them at people.]

This song is good for strutting, plus Sheena Easton really dances with her face a lot in this video. When I was choosing songs I’d like the band to play at my wedding, I picked this one from the list of available songs given to me. “Why would you want this song played at your wedding?” one of the band’s managers askd me. Because it’s awesome. And also, why would you offer a song if you didn’t want people to play it? Would you really rather play “A Whole New World?”

This song is so basic. It only has five words in it plus a funny sound effect and it’s just the same beat, over and over again. But I love it: it’s one of those songs that just takes me back to old school dances and was my first introduction to house music. It might be local, I think? Because once I left Chicago to go to college, nobody had ever heard of the percolator.

This is the second time this week I posted about this song. Every DDPP mix has got to have at least one blissed-out rapture-type song that you just pretend you’re spinning around in a sunny field to and that’s this one for me.

When I look back on my life I feel like I had two “senior year” songs. For senior year of college it was Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me,” which I never felt very strongly about. But for senior year of high school it was “No Diggity.” It’s just so cool and funky, something you can slowly swag around the room to.

I know all the words to this because I sang it in a karaoke competition when I was seven months pregnant and did not even make it to the next round so screw everyone who decided that because hello, big fat pregnant lady rapping? What else do you want?

Yes, I danced while playing air bass guitar to this like that one lady.

I like a song where the beat sounds like a bunch of people stomping on a wooden floor.

I’ll be honest: the song was not a hit on the dance floor as far as I could tell. The audio was tinny and people aren’t that familiar with the full version. But: go White Sox! I had fun.

Sort of another jock jam from the old days. It reminds me of dancing at the old Chicago Stadium and pointing in the general vicinity of Michael Jordan, whose feats of strength were the titular “it” from the chorus.

Cooldown. I love Jarvis Cocker and the entreaty “So let’s go take some drugs/and let’s go have some sex.”

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Wednesdays 7-8 pm
Sundays 4-5 pm
Cost: $5

Though we're otherwise back on our fall schedule, the studio has been rented out for the full day on September 18th and 25th, so there will be NO DANCING on those dates. But we'll see you on the 11th, every Wednesday at 7pm, and alllllll throughout October!

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Questions? E-mail us at ddppchicago at gmail dot com

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